


If It Could Last

by zeldadestry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-20
Updated: 2012-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-04 00:00:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus can’t believe what he’s seeing.  He’s no longer in the Department of Mysteries, surrounded by chaos and curses.   </p><p>Now he stands barefoot upon a grass lawn, a circle of green in the middle of a field of wildflowers that extends as far as he can see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If It Could Last

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: story set directly before Sirius falls through the veil, so could be considered a deathfic

Remus can’t believe what he’s seeing. He’s no longer in the Department of Mysteries, surrounded by chaos and curses. 

Now he stands barefoot upon a grass lawn, a circle of green in the middle of a field of wildflowers that extends as far as he can see. 

In front of him, their naked bodies spread out against the dark blue cloth of a blanket, lie Sirius and another young man. Remus struggles to recognize himself without gray in his hair and shadows under his eyes. Years ago, he was not such a wreck. There is blood in his cheeks, he looks strong and fit, not sallow and crumpled. 

This is a different Sirius, as well, but Remus remembers this version, from back before Azkaban carved him down. Sirius is still, always, beautiful, and this is the Sirius of their last years at Hogwarts, brandishing his supremely satisfied smirk. They’re happy, the both of them, he can hear them laughing. 

He’s stopped from taking a step forward by a hand at his shoulder. When he turns around he finds Sirius, again, broken, but still standing, standing beside him. Sirius tilts his head towards their doubles. “Hard to believe it was ever so easy?” he asks.

“What is this? Where are we?” 

“Damn.” There’s a threat in Sirius’s voice, but Remus knows it’s not directed at him. “Fucking Bellatrix. I can’t believe her curse hit me. This is it. I’m done.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Am I-?”

Sirius snorts. “Come on, Moony. Can stand my own death, been dying for years. But you? Never.”

“But then how am I here with you? What is this place?”

“How and what, I don’t know, but who and why? There’s an old family legend about some magic Phineas Nigellus created to make our deaths easier, because he was afraid to die alone. I never believed it.” He shrugs. “Shows what I know, right? But that must be what this is, so that the last living moment we experience is something we want, something that makes us happy.”

Remus watches the other two kissing, arms wrapped around each other, their bodies pressed together. “But, Sirius, is this what you want, really? To remember how we were, rather than how we are?”

“Isn’t it better?” 

Remus turns from relative innocence to gaze upon the weary face beside him. “It doesn’t make a difference to me,” he swears. “Nothing that has happened, to us or between us, no matter how bad, none of it ever changed what we feel.”

Suddenly, the other Sirius draws away from Remus to shout at them. “Idiots, shut up! This could be the last chance you get. Enjoy it before you’re through.”

The other Remus nods. “Look, Padfoot. You’re outside, in the sun. It’s what you wanted isn’t it? You’re not trapped anymore. You’re free. I’m here with you. There’s no time to waste.”

Remus lets himself fall towards Sirius, abandoning any attempt at control. He squeezes his eyes shut, loses himself to everything but the warmth of Sirius’s body holding him up. “Oh, Moony, you have no idea,” Sirius murmurs, and drags the pad of his thumb across Remus’s cheek. 

Remus doesn’t need to hear any more words. “I know,” he whispers back, as a tear escapes from the corner of his eye. “You don’t have to say it, I know.” His hands clutch at Sirius’s hips, drawing him ever closer. “I’ve always known.” Sirius bows his head, his hair falling across his face and obscuring his expression. Remus reaches up a hand to brush the locks away so that Sirius’s gaunt face reappears. He loves the face before him much more than the young, full face of his memories. He loves this face not in spite of, but because of, the sorrow carved into it, because all he can hope for, when he leans forward with a kiss, is to somehow take any small measure of that pain away. 

He knows it’s not enough, he knows, he knows he has not the power to make it better, but wanting to make it better, somehow that is everything. 

Remus learned to live without Sirius and, though it diminished him, he survived. But before, before he had always known that Sirius still existed, no matter how degraded and distant. And now, now, that single comfort will be torn away. Now he’ll be left loving Sirius without having any hope of him. 

No, he must stop thinking, for it takes him away from this, this, and, as if he can command whatever he wants to occur, all fears of the future vanish. 

He doesn’t understand how it can feel like he’s inside Sirius and, at the same time, Sirius is inside him. Anything seems possible here, anything is possible, because it isn’t real. Except, except, the feelings are real, he understands that. The feelings are real, and he has to be able to take them with him because now they will be all he has left. 

Sirius is somehow both above him and beneath him, to his left and to his right, all around him, and he could never crave anything else as much as this. He grabs Sirius’s shoulders as the world begins spinning wildly, cracking into pieces and falling down around them, because Sirius offers the only protection he wants or needs. 

It doesn’t matter that it is too late, it doesn’t matter that everything is over, there is only this, and he can not stop touching Sirius, he grips his face now with both hands, stilling it and pressing frantic kisses across its whole, his cheeks, now, and now his brow, the tip of his nose, then those lips that have tormented Remus for fucking years, the pronounced dip in the center of the upper, the pout of the lower, he keeps his mouth attached to this most beloved face because, even now, even as he fights against it with every impulse, he can feel the magic falter and fade. 

They’re all alone now, their young doubles vanished. The field disappears, along with the sun. Nothing but darkness surrounds them, although they can see each other perfectly, suspended in space. 

“It’s over,” Sirius gasps, as they plummet, as Sirius begins to slip away from him. “Let go,” he hisses. “Remus, you have to let go. You have to let go or you’ll fall through the veil with me.”

“I don’t care,” Remus says, and he realizes it’s not the panic of the moment making him reckless. He means it.

“But I do.”

“No. I’ll go where you go.”

“Think, Remus,” Sirius pleads. “You can’t come with me, not yet. You have to stay and fight, fight for as long as you can.” Remus shakes his head. “For Harry-” 

The name silences every protest. When Remus hears it, he knows Sirius is right. “Yes,” he concedes. “I will stay.” His hands still cling to Sirius, but Sirius no longer holds on in return. He’s ready to go. 

Remus begins to loosen his grip but then Sirius says, “Moony, wait,” and their eyes meet a final time. Lightning surges through Remus’s body, every cell of him bursting into light, as their whole history together reflects inside them, reliving in one moment everything that has ever happened between them. 

He sees it all, simultaneously, feels it all, and then it evaporates, leaving only this, Sirius’s beautiful eyes staring back at him. And Remus feels, for the first time since their reunion after Sirius’s escape from Azkaban, that he glimpses some portion of peace behind them. 

They know what they mean to each other, that their mutual love and need makes them one, here, one in thought, one in feeling. And it seems they trade this passion back and forth, and each time it cycles through them it becomes stronger, brighter, until it blinds them. Their eyes fall shut, their hands squeeze together just once more, and then they both let go. 

Remus jolts back to his feet, and his eyes open upon the Department of Mysteries again. Sirius is gone, but the work remains. And Remus runs forward, he reaches out and grabs Harry, holds him back with every bit of his remaining strength.


End file.
